In certain locations, such as residential, commercial and industrial buildings, etc., it may be desirous to monitor, control and/or collect information (e.g., node information) generated by one or more sensors and/or measuring or control devices distributed throughout the location. Previous inventions have disclosed network nodes operable to wirelessly transmit and receive its respective network node information to and from a centralized location.
However, it is believed that such a system is difficult to implement, considering low power transmission requirements and possibly disadvantageous environmental conditions, if at least one of the network nodes is blocked, for example, by an obstacle, ambient noise, interference, etc., from transmitting or receiving its related node information.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,850,511 and 7,002,944, hereby incorporated by reference herein, teach a timely organized wireless ad hoc network or networks to overcome these shortcomings. But, each network node in the plurality of network nodes is assigned only one time slot during the time-slotted communications interval. Such a network does not provide for the network node to report more information than can fit within an assigned time slot and does not provide advantageous error handling.
Thus, there is a need for improved communication protocols in a timely organized wireless ad hoc network.